Marketing books is a _____’s ass

It's tough, extremely tough. All that sweat, blood, maybe tears, and not more than 100 buy it. That's the average sales for 99+% millions of books published. Amazon has 18 million books, some say 40 million. After a few months of no sales on Amazon, they make it extremely hard to find your book title even if you search for it by name. Since they aren’t making $$ on sales, they stopped giving it any small prominence months after publishing.

  Even if you make the Times Bestseller List, incredibly hard on your own, it's there for maybe a few weeks, then replaced. But you are a writer or poet. Anyone can write for themselves. But then no one benefits, even those 100 readers, if you don't publish.

   I assume, as you must, you had the book professionally edited or reviewed before publishing, and made the best cover for that book. i don’t say that ‘cause I are one, but everyone does. Rightly so. No one wants crappy grammar, sentence structure etc.

   Here's the keys to a marketing journey:

1. It takes time. Plan ahead. Draw up a Marketing Plan in advance. Set a marketing budget of at least $1,000.

2. Be specific in your book theme, story(ies), poems etc, but ensure it is universal too. Profile your potential customers as you write and before you market. Market or advertise either narrow or wide to a potential audience. Those are readers interested in what you have to say, and why, not anyone. Shotgun blasts may get the word out (good), but not result in many sales.

3. Give pre-publication talks, send email blasts, post on social media, and on your publishing site, like Amazon or wherever, and have pre-pub book purchases. On multiple platforms. Do the work: get into B&N, KOBO, Google Books et al.

4. Make your book launches special. Plural launches. Put $$ and time into them. Again, always on multiple platforms. The first 3 months when new are critical. Do interviews, podcasts, library presentations, author talks and fairs, even YouTube. Newness sells.

5. Continually build your contacts and send emails long before and long after book launches. Email has a 44% ROI. Emails aren't just "Buy my book," but are fun, interesting, informative, and excerpts. It's the relationship that counts. Every human being is an influencer and can tell others.

Those are all good starts. There are 1,000 hawkers of author programs and marketing schemes to promote books. Always, always, consider the breakeven point:

  Formula (sales - costs) = profit

costs = book production, marketing, and advertising. 

  Don't lose $$. No one can afford to, least of all you.

Good luck, but better yet, good planning

Rod

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Rod is a 7-time author and Principal of ABLiA Media since 2012, and helps writers & poets edit, polish, format, and/or publish. More on https://rodneyrichards.info

Author page and Amazon books Here

What would the moon say today?

By Rodney Richards Copyright 2023 All rights reserved

The Moon Reflects

Moonlight slanting
through the bamboo grove;
a cuckoo crying.

by Matsuo Basho

---

The moon glows the same:--
It is the drifting cloud forms
Make it seem to change.

by Matsuo Basho

What inspires writers, poets, and lovers about the moon? Its prominence when full? Its disappearance like we witnessed on August 18, 2017? Its solitude in a black-starred space? Its ever-watchful pose as we speed through each warm day into colder nights? Its call to lovers outside their shade-darkened windows?

   The moon has been our silent observer, watching the antics of humanity from afar since our first appearance. It is only 60 million years younger than Earth itself, which is 4.5 billion years old. The moon has drifted away from the Earth. At one time, it may have been as close as only 14,000 miles.

   Who’s to say an ancient civilization did not exist on the moon and those billions of years ago? It’s sobering to think that at one time, intelligent life watched us from the moon as we have gazed upward through millennia. It’s a nonsensical thought, but….

   If it had intelligent life at one time, what would they say if they saw us today?

   Perhaps, “Don’t do as we did. We had a peace-loving civilization. We had plants and water and life and mountains, fertile valleys, crystal streams, forests and teeming oceans. We had creatures great and small. We loved, made families, and thrived.

   “Then we turned. Turned to hate, and greed, and cruelty. We made terrible instruments of destruction. And we used them. We used them all.

   “We decimated our small planet, our home, our people, and children. Every trace of our existence was ripped from the Book of Creation. We ceased to breathe.

   “I am what’s left. My Sea of Tranquility ironically named. You look up at me and see the outline of my crying face, my sad eyes, my mouth open wide, a warning: “Do not do as I have done! Care for one another, consider one another’s needs and wants as your own. Save yourself. Serve your fellow beings. Educate your children and teach them courtesy and respect. Be a balm to the suffering. Be generous and kind. Love, love, love!”

   This is what I imagine our dead moon saying to us as I look up into its face each night. I imagine its warning shouts in deafening silence because I don’t want to see the same thing happening to Earth. 

   But it is happening. Human cruelty and hate wax stronger. Civility and unity scattered. We destroy our habitat, the planet, as shown so decisively in the movie An Inconvenient Truth. “Greed is Good” as Gordon Gekko proclaimed shamelessly in the movie Wall Street thirty years ago. Wars and battles continue, whether with missiles and guns or using words as swords. The world’s three super-states, the U.S., China and Russia, play dangerous games with economic power, military might, and the lives of their under-represented, unable to unify their masses. Civil unrest among nations is a fiery scourge. Terrorism abounds.

Despite the greatness of our technologies, no person, no company, no nation is safe from being hacked and shamelessly attacked. When we gaze upward at that bright moon-face at night, our eyes remind us of what will come if humanity destroys itself—a dull dead heap of dust with no life to cherish.

    Or we can gaze up and say, “Moon, thank you for your example. I will not let you down. I am going to save our planet and not let nasty pieces of work ruin it. Like you, I am going to open my mouth and cry out a warning and stand up for what is right.”

   We can act with justice. At its core, justice is itself a reward for what’s done right, and punishment for evil. The foundation of every society rest on these two pillars.

   Only through love and justice will we save this life-giving planet for humanity and other creatures.

   O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.

   —Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words, translated from the Arabic #2

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Feeding My Art and Starving My Doubts, Guest Blog by Lace

Guest Blog by Lace, longtime friend, writer, artist, composer, and co-member on the Rutgers Annual Writers Conference Advisory Board for three years

A brief essay about the way I am changing my beliefs about myself as a writer and photographer

A fellow writer shared with me the number of hours he writes per day. When I heard that, I cringed. I could no longer deny the truth. I realized if not for the other creative mediums I work in, which require descriptions, I would not be able to say I had written this year. My writing was not thriving because I was only giving it crumbs of time.

   Based on my lack of submissions made and unfinished story ideas sitting in a stack on my desk, I can confirm the writer in me is malnourished. I talk myself out of my own ideas before I even consider sharing them with the world. The doubters in my life told me: “One cannot make a living as an artist or writer.” It caused me to respond with what I call ‘The Why Bothers’.

   I am no longer in a relationship with the originators of those negative statements, but their words remain mine to wrestle with. In the stillness of my home, now alone, I can hear my heart. It allows the ideas that were only a whisper and hidden to keep safe from doubters, to speak up. They are roaring.

   I wrestle with the doubting words by printing out every compliment said about my writing. I posted these by my drawing board where I brainstorm every idea. I also post them on my computer monitor and my dashboard. I am shocked by how many times I need to look at them.

I phoned a financial advisor who said I had no finances for him to advise me on, and I needed revenue. He suggested I hire a career coach to help me combat the doubts instilled in me and build my own space as a professional. I was skeptical but followed his guidance.

   The result is two businesses: www.writtenylace.com and www.seekfirstphotos. My coach taught me to do something the doubters prevented: embrace my creativity and take up all the space I need in the world.  

   I am not treating these businesses like a hobby, which is something that just supports itself. Instead, I expect them to be businesses which will turn a profit and provide my material needs. I obtained business licenses and business banking accounts. I am taking myself seriously as a creative professional for the first time in my life.

   My house is now full of stacks of papers that are organized into submission entries, easels full of paintings, tripods set up for photographs, and a music room with pencils and composition sheets for the songs I compose. I set goals for writing submissions and art shows for the first quarter of next year.

   The more I say “Yes” to my creative choice of the day, the more the doubtful voices fall mute. What we feed grows. I am feeding my writing and art and growing my businesses. I am starving doubt. My writing has a chance to thrive now.

   How will you nourish your writing and other art forms?

   What is your writing hungry for?

From Imagination to Story

Guest blog

By

Nancy Cathers Demme

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.                                                                                            Kurt Vonnegut

            Creative writing is a challenge.  Words can come slowly or like quicksilver, or not come at all.  It’s an athletic event requiring skill, agility, and concentration.  Writing is like facing a closed door.  Sometimes the door is ajar, other times it is locked.  When locked, the writer must either pick the lock, or if lucky find the key.  Once opened the room behind the door is full of words, spinning, tumbling, crashing about.  The room contains all the words you remember.  Words you have spoken in your sleep.  Words you have whispered to a lover.  Words you have crooned to a child.  It also contains words you think you have forgotten.  They race about in a fecund tumult.  The writer must reach out and grab them one by one in some sort of sensible sequence and immortalize them with pen and paper.

            When I enter this room I grab a word, then another, and another until I have a sentence.

Words are slippery, they slide out of sight, out of reach, and, at times, they disappear altogether through an open window into the black night sky.  But I am vigilant.  I continue reaching for words and have a string of sentences until I have a paragraph.  To write like water is the goal.  This process is repeated over and over until I have the beginnings of a short story or novel, or until I am satisfied and exhausted with the hunt and have access to this dreamlike trance almost whenever I want.         

            All writers have a method for writing.  Some wake at 3 a.m. and write until dawn.  Some write on their lunch breaks.  Others treat writing as a job and write 9 to 5.  I usually have a character who is teasing me, creeping about my everyday thoughts while walking, or reading, eating, or invading my sleep.   Writing is a visceral thing, and I take these characters seriously, jotting down notes about the way the character moves, smiles, laughs, or frowns.  I watch the character engage in conversation or note how they don’t.  I become immersed in the character, so that I can feel them breathe, cough, cry.  I can feel them on my skin, their density, their height, their weight.  I make a judgement about whether he or she will become my protagonist.  Sometimes they follow me wondering what I will make of them, sly, secretive, elusive.  So I write when I can, when the character’s spirit is upon me.  I don’t stop until their presence is gone.  I am a character driven novelist.

            A character driven novelist depends on instinct, while plot driven novelists depend on intellect.  A combination of these qualities makes for the perfect scenario., as in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. To be character driven simply means that the overall theme I want to create comes primarily from the characters I dream up.  Both primary and secondary characters derive from an inner voice, from a fugue state of mind, a daydream state, a quiet state.  If I like a character in this setting, I will probably give this state its head and hold onto it.  I can then let a character become a part of me.  To love a character is best portrayed within the confines of plot, what happens in a novel.  Does the character steal?  Is it naïve?  Is it willful.?  Is it generous?  Adding characters, secondary characters, which play off the protagonist, I don’t love as well. I’m only obsessed with the protagonist. The antagonist will be portrayed as the protagonist’s foil that create conflict and tension.  These two characters must be known inside out which is done through dialogue, narrative and plot.  Where is the protagonist going?  How is the antagonist providing stumbling blocks for the protagonist.  Sometimes I need to corral them back in.  Secondary characters must also be corralled in from time to time to make the narrative cohesive. Without some constraint a secondary character can derail the story if adherence to character and plot go wrong.  Endings become harder to make concise and entertaining and knowable.

            There are writers who are plot driven like Tom Clancy, the actions and conflicts less driven by character supersedes at times the protagonist.  These novels depend on actions, settings and history, all of which history provides conflict.  I envy these writers their ability to come up with scenarios that work.  My process for creating plot is quite different.  I follow my character around until I know what he might do in a given situation, and then I provide a feasible plot point for him, thus it is the character who decides what will happen.  This only succeeds if you know your characters inside and out, and they are willing to lead you there.  There are times when I have to lead them away from their decided purpose.

            Other writers are driven by setting, a mountain, a valley, a city.  Others are driven by time, the world wars, the plague, the moonshot.  Both setting and time are extremely important.  A good writer will merge and bend setting and time. They will spend elaborate amounts of time researching to provide simply a word or sentence to the manuscript, while others will devote much of what is written from research.

            I see writing as a great puzzle.  One piece leads to another, and another, and another.  In  great novels the last piece, the one you finally find on the floor and which has been gnawed on by the dog, that doesn’t quite fit,  reveals something the reader takes home and chews upon.

            My own novel, “The Ride,” (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, February, 2019) followed the same path from imagination to story.  It is a crossover young adult novel meaning it is suitable for adults and teenagers.  The inspiration came from the word room described above. ‘Anonymous’ was the word I clutched from midair, and it described the protagonist Diego Ramirez.   Throughout the novel I kept this characterization of Diego in mind while writing.  How would I make him knowable?  How much did I want him knowable?

            Diego is 15, anonymous, illiterate, and an arsonist.  He is also abused by his stepfather.  Diego lives with his mother and two sisters on a ranch in 1952 El Paso. One evening, after being brutally beaten by his stepfather, Diego sets fire to the barn where his stepfather is working.  He believes he has killed him, steals his mother’s life savings, dimes and nickels, and flees the ranch.  He hitchhikes through Texas accepting rides from anyone who will pick him up, a bigoted truck driver, a woman who only picks up children of crippled spirit, a ball bearing

salesman and others who help Diego come to terms with his crime and the crimes committed against him.

            I spent many dark days with Diego trying to come to terms with his arson.  Profiling arsonists led me to understand that abused children often grow up to be arsonists.  I made the stepfather the abuser. Initially, Diego’s fire settings are benign, built on a platform

of family time with his biological father, who disappears from his life one day. It was a time he cherished before the stepfather arrived on his doorstep.  Diego and his biological father would burn garbage in the drum behind the house, and his father, a carpenter, would straighten coffin nails in a fire, and they would talk.  His love for his real father, his devotion to his mother even though she was no protection from abuse, and his protectiveness toward his sisters, served to provide Diego with reader empathy.  The reader knows he is not evil, but deeply troubled.  The reader must, like, or if not like, identify with the protagonist.

            Once all these elements were in place, it was easy to follow Diego through Texas to his last ride.  The story seemed to write itself.  I was always glad when there was a new ride, a new character, perhaps friendly, perhaps dangerous, for Diego to weather.  I only worked on the story when I was in the word room, and made good use of my own vocabulary to express the story.

            Being sensitive to your own intuitions, whims, and diversions is what gets novels written.  It is not a tortuous path as myth would have it.  It is a luxurious stroll through a landscape of your own making.  It is one in which readers dwell for a time then move on.  The novel is a temporary space for mortals to inhabit.  A good novel offers an array of human emotions, foibles, and experiences that make the relationship between the page and the reader priceless. To share a microcosm of life, a panorama of characters, and perhaps lingering in the minds of readers, is the ultimate endpoint of writing.

            I take my inspiration and style of writing from many novelists.  I would say John Steinbeck, his simple prose and wonderfully rich characters, influenced me most..  I have many favorites and would suggest to young writers that the key to writing good fiction is to read as much as you can.

Nancy Cathers Demme

Author of “The Ride”, Stephen F. Austin State University Press, February 2019

1.      Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country.  New York: Random House, 2007.

 Note: Published in The Torch, Spring 2022, Vol. 95. Issue 3

You are a Writer. Want to be an Author?

You are a writer.

If you write for yourself, that can be fulfilling, but then we never find out who you are, what you think or feel, what you know and want to share, and how, from your insights and experience, you can help us.

Authors however fill a need. They work hard to hone their story, novel, or book into a well-written, well-conceived whole. That work includes writing, plotting, planning, editing, revising, proofing, and publishing. Marketing begins well before publishing. Their readers want something from them, perhaps a romance novel, or a thriller, or a dystopian future that ends with promise, or a memoir that connects heart to heart, mind to mind. It has to be well-written, uses correct English, and touches readers’ emotions or intellect. When done well, readers ponder it, laugh, cry, remember it, and share it with others.

To reach readers, do three things.

1. Gain their attention. For you, your person, your brand, your book, etc. In other words, do the research, develop your target audience, and spend all your time reaching them. Forget everything else- it's a waste of your precious time and dollars. Forget blanket emails and blanket ads on any platform. Have a website, but it is there to give you credibility and start a conversation only. Focus on only those who you are trying to reach.

For example, the audience for my manic memoir is mania sufferers, their caregivers, and mental health professionals. I didn't write the book to shock my relatives and sell 20 copies.

THERE IS NO PUBLIC. The public doesn't care about you. But if they see you on a radio interview or podcast, read a good review etc., they may care enough to search for your book on Amazon. You should have a link in everything you send out, so they can open it up, read a few pages, and click "Buy." My links direct people to my Amazon Author Page with Bio, pictures, all my books, and my website. I also put my email address everywhere, in my books too.

2. Gain their trust. Whether they know you as a person or writer or cook and bottle washer, spend time with them in person, by phone, email, chat, on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram so they can get to know you and your writing, and like both. The world runs on people, not book sales. Be open to all, respect others, cultivate relationships. If you do that, fans will love you and stay with you.

3. Show them how you help. Write to fulfill a need, a passion, to communicate, whatever it is. Write poems too, they train your ear and mind and heart to communicate with your soul. Have a message. Speak it and write it. Not only that, that message should bring new ideas, inspiration, shock, surprise, love, even hate for the antagonist or what's wrong in the world. Readers want to know that, and, in a way, every message must have a call for change, a call to action, to make things better for the reader and the world. All readers have a need. Your task before you start: Pinpoint your audience, find their need, and fill it. That's what Bestsellers do.

If you tell your story with honesty and emotion, respect everyone, and cultivate relationships, people will flock to you and what you offer.

That's my take on it, anyway. And I firmly believe everyone has a story they should share.

Best,

Rod

What to Arrange for Your Front and Back Matter to Publish

Google “book parts,” “front matter” or “back matter” and you will find many articles and lists on how to arrange the pages and elements of your manuscript for publication.

But I say, be aware of all those parts of a book you can have, and choose very wisely what you will include and how long the text will be. Because when it comes down to it, every page of your manuscript costs pennies to print if its Print On Demand (POD). This is important because for us self-publishers who use POD platforms like Amazon KDP, the cost to print the book is subtracted from our retail price before we make any royalties. Of course, you can set your price higher to earn more, but that may derail potential buyers. For example, I recently set my price for a 310 page book at $13.99. Amazon KDP wants $4.55 to print that, and then takes 40% of what’s left, leaving me 60%. You can do the math. Also, KDP has a floor price to sell which you can’t go below.

Starting out it’s good to set your price lower to encourage more eyeballs and word of mouth, and KDP offers some programs to do that. Bottom line: the number of pages costs you $$, so be succinct and precise in what you do. BUT YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO WITHIN REASON. Note that some of these suggestions vary based on fiction or nonfiction.

The pages of any book are called verso or recto. Recto is the "right" or "front" side and verso is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper. It is critical you get these correct when formatting your manuscript. I’ve done it for my own three books and a dozen others.

But I’m here to tell you, the author, there are recommended and traditional recto and verso pages for your front and back matter. Here is a basic outline of many of them from Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur. They are not exhaustive.:

What are the parts of a book called?

1. Front Matter

   • Title Page

   • Copyright Page

   • Table of Contents

   • Dedication/Acknowledgement Pages

   • Foreword

   • Preface or Introduction

   • Epigraph

2. The Body

   • Prologue

   • Chapters

   • Epilogue

3. Back Matter

   • Afterword

   • Appendix or Addendum

   • Endnotes

   • Bibliography

   • Author Bio

   • Coming Soon/Read More

   • Also By

The first recto page is the Title page, with Title in big letters, your name, and if published by a company, their city location and country, and name, at the bottom of the page. If you have a frontispiece (illustration or photo), it would face the Title page on the verso. Increasingly, authors are putting a page of Review quotes opposite the Title page.

On the verso of the Title page is Copyright information, contact info, permissions, Disclaimers if any, edition etc. I like to put the Dedication next, with an Epigraph relating to the theme of the book on the verso. Then on the recto starts the Table of Contents, I just call “Contents." In MS-Word you can generate a TOC automatically if you’ve used a Heading in the Styles ribbon to signify each Chapter name. Set your MS-Word Options settings to Update before closing and the TOC will always be up to date.

If you have a special known or popular writer who has read your book and will write a good Forward, this comes next. But most writers can bypass this and should include a Preface, written by themselves, that generates interest and some context (without giving it all away, especially if fiction). This sets the tone of the chapters and story that follow. But keep it short, no more than two pages. An Introduction is different. I would only use one if I needed (and should be less than two pages), to give backstory or context that wasn’t woven into the chapters.

The Body or Chapters, starting at page 1 on the recto, are next. Prologues have fallen out of use, so choose carefully if you need one to precede the first chapter. If you’ve written a good Preface, you don’t need a Prologue. After all the chapters, which should vary in length, you may have an Epilogue, or last chapter resolution, or thoughts to share on the story. It could be called In Conclusion, or In Closing in nonfiction.

Photos and pictures, even sketches, if possible, should be used appropriately throughout the text to enhance the reading experience. But they must carefully vetted to pertain to the context. In my latest book of 100 essays, I incorporated 80 photos, and they must all be jpeg, licensed, or public domain. In my Volume 1 of 100 essays, I bartered editing work for the sketches used.

The Back Matter should contain any Appendix exhibits, Endnotes to cite your sources of quotations used, preferably hyperlinks, Acknowledgments, a page and your author photo in About Me (a longer Bio), and a Contact Me page to encourage reviews, give links to your social media sites, and show your email address.

Reedsy has good information at https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/parts-of-a-book/ Kindlepreneur by Dave Chesson also provides some other resources at https://kindlepreneur.com/parts-of-a-book/ I also recommend you subscribe free to their newsletters and blogs.

What are First Serial Rights?

The first goal of any writer or poet is to write, ideally something original in their voice that captures their readers. You can only capture readers’ minds or hearts if you publish and they can read your words. Luckily, thousands of literary outlets and journals exist to do just that and are eager for good content. When you first submit an original piece or poem and are selected, paid or not, they will require First Serial Rights.

Here’s a typical Term and Condition:

            “We are entitled to first serial and reprint rights. That is, we are allowed to be the first publisher of your work before the rights revert to you, and we are then allowed to republish your work if it is chosen for an award or an anthology. These publication rights extend to all formats (digital and print) and locations, and once your poem is accepted for an anthology, you agree it can be featured in our digital and print issues, which are sold to [publication name or org name] readers.”

First, by submitting, you are telling them they are the first to use your piece. Second, you are giving them the right to republish that piece. Sometimes it might say “First North American Serial Rights (FNASR)” meaning only pertaining to North America, but increasingly and with online publications and the internet, “world” is more common. In the example above “all formats and locations” means the world.

All writers or poets submitting their work to literary outlets or publications, whether print or digital/online, will have to agree to language similar to this in order to be published if selected. If you don’t agree, withdraw your submission, since it is unlikely the wording will change. This right of the publisher, “first serial and reprint rights” is always implied. It’s your job as the submitter to make sure there are limits when the publisher can issue your work, and for how long he holds the rights to do so. Generally, two years should be the limit. All rights revert to you (as in the example above), at some point, which should be clear.

During this time and afterward, it is not only courteous but accepted practice that if you submit the same piece to another publication; you state where and when it was first printed. This usually is done on the piece itself. Reprints of your work that previously appeared in another publication are “second serial rights.” These rights are nonexclusive, meaning you can submit or sell the piece to many publications at the same time.

In other words, your piece or poem is not “exclusive” to the publication that first printed it. If they ask for that, consider what that means to you and if you agree. Many publications accept reprints, so think of that too.

Other rights to consider are “simultaneous rights” that give you the ability to sell work to publications that don’t have overlapping circulations, and “all rights,” which means you sell all the rights to your work to the buyer, and you never get another nickel for the piece, no matter how many times they publish it.

One thing. You always own the copyright in the piece, and as the author that always remains with you. Unless you let a publisher copyright it in their name, but I wouldn’t do that.

One more thing. Don’t plagiarize.